Archives for July 2007

Yeah, I know. You aren’t supposed to care what other people think. When I see pictures like the one below though, I often wonder what the rest of the world must think. Looks like Materialism at it’s finest. Bling bling! I can only imagine how much those wheels and tires cost. They probably cost more than the whole car is worth. But, if they bought

On December 15, 2007 my parents had a fire at their home. The fire gutted the garage/shop and smoked the inside of their house. Days after the fire, my mother called the various utilities to stop them while they waited to rebuild and clean their house. They knew it would be months before they would be able to get back in their house and didn’t

When I saw these images of various consumer products that are vizualized in their various quantities I was struck with how much waste we have in this country. 426,000 cel phones are retired every day. http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/11rtn.php http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/12rtn.php 11,000 jet trails are produced in this country every 8 hours http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/ http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/02rtn.php 106,000 aluminum cans are used in the US every 30 SECONDS! http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/05rtn.php http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/06rtn.php 60,000 plastic

A lot of people talk about open source and point out that it’s the holy grail of software. I love open source software just as much as the next guy but I also like Windows. I’ve used Linux in the past (an old Redhat version and the more recent Ubuntu) but I could never bring myself to use it exclusively. Like many others, I found

In my never ending quest to find examples of people selling you what you don’t need, I’ve come across Rent and Roll. In this case, if you don’t have the cash but need to get some nice “bling” for your car, you’re in luck. With Rent and Roll you can rent the nice shiny expensive wheels for your car with their “rent to own” program. What

Just when I thought I had heard everything, along comes this company that will sell you 52 fake ATM receipts that they’ll put any dollar figures you want on. I’m sure that this is just a good prank for many people, but you know there are some people out there that will actually buy these in an attempt to be something they are not. It’s

My brother in law and I had a good conversation about money today while we were all visiting at my mom’s house. For those few readers that have been reading ELYM for awhile, you’ll remember that my mom and dad had a massive fire at their house back in December and then my father passed away two weeks later (from a heart attack). Anyway, my

I’ve often found myself trying to decide whether to buy a cheap item that might not last very long or spend a little more and get what I perceive to be better quality. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve purchased over the years that were at the bottom of the price/quality scale. Some of those items have quickly found themselves in the garbage can

I remember back when I was 18 years old. I was convinced I wanted to buy a nice car that required a car loan. The only problem with my idea was that I was 18 and had no credit (and really shouldn’t have been buying a car at the time). Since I knew no reputable bank would give me a loan for a car unless

Lately, as my job has been really stressful and I’m frankly not all that happy with it, I’ve been thinking about throwing in the towel and moving out to the lake house once it’s done. (My wife would love to do this) In a sense, we’d be checking out of the rat race we are in to find new opportunities and a slower pace. Of